Art & Inspiration It ain't a car part but it does the job - What have you used?

When we were installing the interior in the Ranch Wagon we over stuffed the folding back of the rear passenger seat, when I lifted up the bottom which swivels forward and dropped the back sown the two alignment pins punched two holes in the top edge of the seat , (This is where you interject a stream of obscenity's which I was not proud of).

After quitting work for the day and returning the next sure that I was going to have to take the seat out and recover the top ( more money) I was shocked to see 2 nicely shaped pieced of metal that would guide the pins into the holes without doing any damage.

I was amazed that they looked like something Ford would have done at the assembly plant, my pal Dave, the man responsible for the cool interior had saved the day, he said he didn't have enough extra material to re-do the set and really didn't want to.

Dave said when he was having dinner that evening he reached in the silverware drawer and saw a spoon and knew he had a solution, he went to Wallmart that evening and purchased 2 large Onida stainless spoons, he went back home and bent the handle over, cut most of it off then lapped the cone shape of the spoon over the hole and bolted it down under the stainless strip of the seat. HRP

 

Any port in a storm or parts is parts

 

Not mine but I went to look at a stock 39 Chev coupe that was for sale a few years ago. Must have been a large user of oil because someone had tied a plastic paint roller tray under the sump with wire to catch the drips.

 

No pics, but I used chrome supply tube for sinks as headlight conduit from the headlight to the grill shell.
Just bent the tubing in a bender, and used grommets in the shell and buckets.

On another rod, I used straight chrome drain pipe between 2 angled short pieces of rad hose, one at the rad,one at the thermostat housing sorta like the flatheads do.
Looked good,but I took that back off though as I didn't think it had enough flex and would cause a leak at the radiator

 

I made some vacuum lines out of chrome plated copper bathroom sink lines one time. They were just the right size for the PCV valve, just used a short piece of rubber on each end to connect them with.

Had an OT Jeep CJ5 with an open element air cleaner one time, every time I went through a stream or even a large water hole the fan would throw enough water back into the carb it would drown out. I bought a stainless bowl, drilled a hole in the bottom, stuck it over the air cleaner and bolted it down. I also bought a big aluminum cup of some kind, cut it in half, and left the bottom on it, and fastened it over the front and top of the distributor with a big worm gear clamp. I put some kind of sheet rubber inside so it wouldn't ground out against the plug wires. It kept any water from splashing the distributor.

 

My 3 on the tree shift knob, was a brass handle for a fire place tool holder set.
Same threads and screwed right on, just requires polishing now.

 

On my 55 Buick I used a heavy duty fence gate spring as the parking brake release spring off the diff.

a antique glass door knob for the shifter. On my 50.

I’m my o/t truck I had a booming subwoofer stereo that I had all the amps etc bolted to the sub box and a 600 volt 3 page plug on the end.
When I needed the trunk space it was as easy as unplugging and removing the speaker box.

im sure there is tons more I’m not remembering right now.

 

My shifter in the roadster is a vintage glass door knob.
r


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

Follow the fender brace to the rear carb. I used a horse shoe to go around the rear carb. The horse shoe is reattached to the support rod on the firewall side.

 

Safety latches for my suicide doors. { screen door hooks }

 

I've used the chrome plumbing supply faucet hole plugs to cover holes in the dash & firewall in the past. HRP

 

I used a "fancy-smancy" spun Alum. water bottle(that yuppies drink out of)WITH the screw on top...for an overflow bottle for my radiator.

Used a Colt 45 beer can (because it has a kicking pony on it) for a coil cover on my O/T hot rod.

I SAW an Optima battery with Coors beer cans wrapped around each of the "cells" of the battery. Slick!

I used the chrome water supply tubing to slip over my all-thread carb linkage.

My battery is in the trunk. I have a hot wire under the hood with a cigarette lighter "socket" wired in. The power end
of my timing light has the power cord end with a matching plug to go into the cigarette lighter!
6sally6

 

I've also used the black plastic type that the hardware stores sell. HRP

 

Broke the contacter arm on a set of points some 50 miles from home. Had an aspirin bottle of wooden matches. Lit one to get rid of the fire, broke it in half, and used the two pieces with some speaker wire to splint the contacter arm, and limped home.

Jon.

 

Now that's some MacGyver stuff right there!

 

Used my wife's perfume bottle. { for a traffic light finder } I just used a little felcro on top of the factory ash tray. Ron........

 

A close up night shot from my cellphone.

Sent from my SM-G920P using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

I needed a replacement piece of green film (mica?) for the turn signal indicators on the speedometer housing of the '54 Ford, the original pieces had darkened and were brittle.



The answer was as simple as the green plastic lid that was the on the sliced turkey I had for lunch, I slipped out of the house with the lid before I got caught and cut out a couple of small sections, I took the scissors and trimmed 2 perfect circles.



I don't know if there are reproduction pieces or not but this is free and it works like it was made for this purpose.



I believe this would work on just about any car or truck. HRP

 

In my younger days I stumbled on a boat warehouse parts place and while searching the bins came across some heavy duty stainless u-joints. Kid behind the counter didn't know what they fit, and since he was freezing his ass off (middle of Jan in unheated warehouse) and I was the first customer he'd seen in a week, he sold me the whole bin full (25) for 100.00. I don't know what the boat people used them for, but I used them for routing my steering shafts. Neat thing about them was they allowed almost a 90 degree angle without binding.

 

See the door pull handles just below the window trim? They were missing on a 540K Mercedes ( not the one in the photo), had to make them from scratch. ACE Hardware sells a toilet seat hinge that you can use as a mold to cast them in bronze. Once fitted and chromed they looked fine, I still laugh about it now and then. Bob

 

Carb king, that reminds me of when I first started in the business. I worked in the garage for our city and caught a service call about quitting time. Our Flathead powered 51 or so Ford winchtruck quit. Raised the hood, had no spark, pulled the cap off, the center springy contact on the rotor had broken off.
I showed the driver, he was afraid he wasn’t going to get back by quitting time as he figured I would have to run to the parts store. Well I looked around on the highway and spotted a short piece of wire. I tied it in the outside contact and cut it to length, the engine fire up and ran fine, back to the shop.
Next day it was all over the city that the new kid fixed that old truck with junk off the street!
Not quite as good as yours....... but close!








Bones

 

My headlight bar is 1/2" copper pipe from the plumbing store. The ends where it hooks to the headlight mounting posts are copper tees sweated on with solder. Should take chrome nicely if I ever have the money.

 

That's one of those things that if you didn't people no one would know, it looks pretty much like a original piece. HRP

 

And it looked like it was the original piece, that's amazing. HRP

 

I found this NOS Mr. Gasket shift boot on the closeout table at a speed shop years ago, had no need for it at the time so put it in a drawer, actually forgot I even had it until I was cleaning out a cabinet one day and stumbled on it.
The shifter handle in my roadster has quite a dog leg in it and I needed to make a shifter surround to make it work, went to the local junk store and found a small cast aluminum stove pan, cut the boss off where the handle was attached, chucked it up in the lathe and bored a big hole in the bottom, machined a boot ring and made a switch box out of a small aluminum electronics cover found in the scrap bin at work, bent up a couple of mounting tabs and..............
Voila

 

simple drawer pull knobs from Ace Hardware for choke and starter lever in the sedan

 

an old 3" belt drive pulley off my old panhead makes a nifty cup holder.

 

The stainless top off a 14 inch electric wok makes a nice air cleaner lid, I have also used aluminum tumblers for velocity stacks on a couple bikes, and my son's stainless BSA mess kit for another air cleaner. I also have a Kuryakin buddy peg bolted to my F250 shifter like a pistol grip, comfy as can be, and I always hated that crap on a bike.

 

Throttle Linkage

 

I hope that's a joke or a emergency fix to get back home. HRP